He dreamed, at first, pleasant dreams; of flying, floating, drifting easily through fields of strangely-singing multicolored clouds ... then there was a change, and he felt himself being pulled down, separated from the sky. Distantly, he could hear water flowing somewhere. Gravity became gradually more pronounced, but he was still content.
It was the sense of outside anger and outrage that disturbed him -- a pair of voices beginning to rise above the running water. He woke fully when something jostled his body: a soft impact against the outer shell. His eyes opened slowly, but the light was not as bright as he'd anticipated. A girl had backed right up against the curved glass enclosing him, and her hair was so dark he could see his own reflection in the panel.
" -- it's unethical, and it's immoral!" she was yelling. The narrow capsule of his womb muffled the sound, but rang with the force of her words.
"I thought you were going to tell me it was 'unjust,'" a familiar voice answered only a beat after she finished.
"It goes without saying!" she asserted.
I wish they wouldn't fight, he thought, like a mental sigh, and presently small questions began drifting to the surface of his mind. What am I doing in here? Did something happen to me? The murky water continued to drain slowly from the container, lapping at his ribs as it fell past them.
"He'll never know the difference, if I can get it done before he wakes up," the other voice nearly snapped. "Stand aside!"
The capsule sloshed again as the girl was pulled off with some effort, and the other speaker stepped forward. His features aligned perfectly with the reflection on the inside of the glass -- but his skin --
"What's going on here?" he tried to ask, but the tank's interior reflected the sound back at him.
"He will know the difference!" the girl was insisting from beyond his visual range. "You weren't with us when we went to research Copy Homunculus, Mr. Zelgadis. That man said a copy can have all the memories and skills of the original!"
"Dammit, now he's awake!" the odd-looking man snapped. "I've got no time to waste -- "
Copy Homunculus? It was astonishing, the current of knowledge and memory triggered just by words. Not his own recollections, and yet he had them. Am I a... Am I a...
The angry man -- Zelgadis -- turned swiftly and began to cross the small room to an intimidating apparatus in the far corner, but the girl flung herself at him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"I can't let you do this, Mr. Zelgadis!" she cried.
He untangled her with ease, and held her at arm's length by the throat. It looked uncomfortable.
"You've been very dear until now, Amelia," he warned her in a new, dark and scary voice. "Which is why I suggest you stay out of my way."
"Hey, stop that!" the unnamed one protested from his capsule, but again it muffled him. He put his hands up to the glass. "Let her go!"
Amelia's eyes seemed to roll in his direction in the moment before she was thrown down, but Zelgadis seemed not to have heard.
He gathered himself up and rammed against the interior of the glass, once, twice, shaking the tank on its struts, and then he knew the girl had noticed him. Zelgadis' guard fell naturally as he started calibrating the strange machine, and while his back was turned Amelia rose, ran back across the room, and released a series of latches along the side of the container. Together they lifted the heavy glass lid, and then the water left inside washed him out onto the floor.
"Amelia!" he heard Zelgadis gasp. Unused to the full force of gravity, he shakily pulled himself up on all fours -- and blushed as he felt a draft.
"He's not just a mindless body, Mr. Zelgadis; he's a copy of you!" she declared with conviction. "How are you to prevent him from feeling what you felt, when Rezo gave you that body? How will you keep him from hunting you down, in that body, when you no longer have magic?"
The copy was only half-listening, in his search for something to wear. On a table against the wall, there seemed to be a neat stack of folded cloth; it turned out to be a bathrobe. He pulled it on hastily, leaning on the table out of mistrust for his legs.
"Don't make me fight you, Amelia. Seyruun can't afford to lose another of your line," Zelgadis threatened quietly as he started toward the copy, and she blanched.
"You ... you can't mean that," she protested feebly.
In person, the original, angry Zelgadis was even more disturbing to new eyes. The copy shank back only briefly before he was seized around the waist and tucked under Zelgadis' arm with a yell of protest.
"If I die, it's no great loss. If he dies, I can make another," Zelgadis assessed, returning to the tank with the squirming copy. "But you can hardly afford to lose your life arguing ethics with me."
"Then -- I'll break the machine, if you try to make the exchange!"
"Then you'll kill us both. Is that what you want?" Zelgadis asked, just before he turned the copy upright and shoved him back into the damp capsule. He stuck his arms out quickly before the lid could be closed.
"Wait, wait! I have a question!" he said quickly. Zelgadis caught both his wrists and pushed them in against his chest.
"Make it fast," he commanded, on the last dregs of his patience and sanity.
"You're very strong..." the copy began, his mind racing for the words.
"Yes..."
"You want to take my body and leave me in yours, yes? Then, after that ... what's to stop me from doing the same thing back to you?" he finished, with a small smile at his own reasoning. Through the stony hands, he could feel the impact of his words as Zelgadis' eyes widened.
"My god ... you are a copy of me," he realized, hoarse with sudden shock. He released the nameless one and backed away without closing the unit. "I've been running in circles..." In a daze, he turned and wandered over to sit in the corner, on the stairs leading up from the room.
The copy stepped out of the tank; he no longer found it pleasant there. Amelia had relaxed from her told-you-so posture, and her body language continued to soften as she drew nearer to him.
"Please don't hate him," she asked, also very softly. "He's ... desperate. And stubborn."
"I know," the copy murmured, with the memory of someone else's infernal resolve at the back of his mind. Together they crossed the room to the staircase.
"Amelia," Zelgadis groaned, huddled in on himself, and she came up next to him on the stairs.
"Yes?"
Hesitantly, as if he would be struck, he took her hand. "Amelia, I'm so sorry -- you know I'd never -- please forgive me..."
"Do you think I should?" she asked quietly, startling both men for a moment. "The extremes you go to could endanger thousands of people, Mr. Zelgadis."
He hung his head lower, and let her hand slip.
"But I don't want to drive you to despair, ever," she added warmly, putting her arm across his shoulders, and she stooped to hug him.
"Excuse me," the copy interrupted shyly, and stretched his arm out very slowly to touch Zelgadis' arm where it rested on his knee. When there were no objections, he explored further up the arm, and then slowly, almost dreamily dared to touch his face. But when their eyes met, he drew back suddenly with a small gasp.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't know ... how it feels from the outside," he explained lamely.
"You remember?" Zelgadis asked, and the copy nodded. "How much?"
"I don't know ... a lot." He seemed to contract slightly, thinking back to memory/instinct. "I remember Shabranigdo... I remember Phibrizzo... I remember you ... gathering ingredients for a spell..." His hand wandered up to his mouth. "Right up until you cut your tongue," he finished.
Zelgadis nodded.
"Was that really the only reason you made me? To use my body?"
"... Yes," Zelgadis answered, darkening, falling in on himself again, and there was a long, uncomfortable pause.
"Well? Aren't you going to tell me what a villain I am?" Zelgadis demanded. "Aren't you going to tell me I'm worse than Rezo?"
Amelia jumped at this outburst, but the copy did not.
"No... I can hardly do that..."
"Because of what you remember, right?" Zelgadis concluded, almost sardonically.
"Exactly," the other man confirmed, grabbing his attention. "Too much of me is still you. "
For Zelgadis, this perspective, the nature of what he had made, finally began to sink in. His eyes widened and glazed.
"Miss Amelia," the clone began with only slightly diminished conviction.
"Huh?"
"... I need a name," he appealed. Zelgadis continued his speechless gazing, as if into a new sort of mirror.
"Oh! Um ... how about... Ceren -- ?" she offered.
"Ceren," he repeated, trying it on. "Ceren Graywords..."
"Graywords," Zelgadis echoed absently.
"Sh -- should I not use the surname?" Ceren asked hesitantly.
"No. Use it," Zelgadis answered. "We're the last of the line."
"Mr. Zelgadis," Amelia prompted gently.
"Hm?"
"... He'll need something to wear," she reminded him, and Ceren tried not to blush.
"Oh. Right." Still somewhat dazed, Zelgadis rose and started up the stairs. Amelia turned back toward Ceren.
"Come on, this way," she beckoned, with a small smile, and they went upstairs.